


The Waters We Wade

by xelly



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xelly/pseuds/xelly
Summary: “Are you happy?” he asks me and I tear my eyes from the window and smile up at him.“More than I could ever hope for,” I say, and it's true.But I never expected to be anything other than miserable, so this thing I experience with him, with our family, is more than I could have ever dreamed of.(It still does not feel like it's enough.)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	The Waters We Wade

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Days Gone Quiet, by Lewis Calpadi. 
> 
> I don't have an explanation for this other than I needed to write it.

“Are you happy?” he asks me and I tear my eyes from the window and smile up at him.

“More than I could ever hope for,” I say, and it's true.

But I never expected to be anything other than miserable, so this thing I experience with him, with our family, is more than I could have ever dreamed of.

(It still does not feel like it's enough.) 

* * *

I toy with the idea of death. Like playing with a coin between my frozen finger. It's an old coin, rusted with age, an old friend of mine that I always keep in my pocket. Sometimes I forget it's there at all. But then it gets heavy, and it's not a coin anymore, it's a boulder I'm carrying with my weak arms.

(I don't know how to leave it behind.) 

* * *

Azriel knows hopelessness and darkness. 

He understands me better than most, better even than my own mate. He has a knack for telling apart the good days from the bad and from the worse. And he's always there, silent and steady.

I let him shoulder the burden. Because he _gets_ it. He knows how one's mind can enter a maze made of itself and become lost. Become hopeless. And it's the hopelessness that makes it dangerous.

It makes you want to give up.

That's not something neither of us will allow.

(I've been fighting too long to lose now.) 

* * *

Rhys might not always understand me, for he doesn't experience this like I do. But he's there. Here always there to massage that spot on my neck when the weight becomes to much, when the strain nearly breaks me in half. He's there, and for that I am thankful.

But I am also ashamed.

Ashamed when I can't smile back, when I can't bother to be happy. I should be. Yet I'm not. 

(I wish I could stop being so sad all the time.) 

* * *

Tamlin understands the void. 

I go back to the Spring Court when it becomes too much. I wear another face, another set of sad eyes and empty heart. No one in my family knows. 

I haunt the woods like a wraith. There are rumors about me, about the spirit weeping at the blackest hours of the night, an empty shell just wandering the lands.

I don't know why I do this. Don't want to think about it. But then Tamlin and I cross paths, and I see him _see_ me, truly me. He recognizes, too, that same well of _nothing_ pouring out of my heart. Because he knows what it is like to fight when you have nothing.

He knows fighting it, and losing.

He looks like he lost, just like I do. 

We stare at each other, for a moment. He broke me, I recall, trying to summon just a little bit of anger, but that fire has gone out and I can't find it in me to ignite it. It wouldn't be fair anyway, I broke him too. So we stare at each other. 

He turns his back on me not long after, and he goes on. 

(That's all we can do.) 

* * *

Nesta knows hatred. 

She and I are more alike than either of us likes to admit. But it's true. And with the horrors she has now faced, we are even closer than Elain and her have been in the past. It's curious how misery brings people together on its endless search for company. 

She glances down at the world before her, perched on her lonely throne, her beautiful mouth twisted in a perpetual sneer. A nasty, uncaring queen. As bitter as she is beautiful. 

She is like me, I keep on realizing. 

I wish it wasn't the case. Nesta deserves better. 

(Then again, maybe do I. But that doesn't always matter.) 

* * *

Cassian knows guilt, but not true despair. He's got wings that can stop him from free falling, to pull him out of the darkest pit. 

_How?_ , I find myself asking.

And his hazel eyes are shadowed, but there is still defiance in them, against those who bring them down, against his own inner darkness. 

_Because I can't let it swallow me. I can't get comfortable in it. I have to keep moving._

He reminds me to move even when I want to stop. Because the thing that feeds from my misery it's not like those predators that leave you alone when you stay still. No, it is a scavenger that picks your bones clean and eat your heart long after it stops beating. 

* * *

Mor knows restrain, but she also knows anger. 

She knows clenching your fists and gritting your teeth. Knows how to keep her face blank and pleasant and smug to spite others. But she knows how to let it out, she knows roaring and snarling and growling. 

It's magnificent to see. Like a star exploding, consuming everything close to her. She never shines brighter than when she unleashes that rage and subjects the world to it. 

She knows many things I do not, like letting go when it's time to. Letting go so completely that she sometimes loses herself as well. 

No matter how much she tells me to do the same, there's always something that I can't stop holding onto. Something that lingers and grows and swells inside me until it's time to let it out again. 

I am not like Mor. I can't lose myself, even if only for a little while. 

(I'm afraid I won't get myself back.) 

* * *

Elain knows the strength of kindness. 

She is gentle in a way no one else in the family is. Maybe I coddled her too much, maybe Nesta and I shielded her so much from the world that she turned out like this. 

Still, I wouldn't change any of it. 

Elain is like a flower in a desert. A little bit of color in a painting made of black and white. She's vibrant, alive with a brightness different from Mor's. 

She is also a reminder. That the world isn't so bad, and even when it is, you don't have to be. She is a reminder that being good and kind is a choice we never make, like the forgotten answer of a common question. 

Elain is strong where many can't or won't. 

(I hope she can teach me to be, one day.)

* * *

Amren knows desensitization, isolation. She knows how to look at a bleak reality and feel nothing because she's simply felt too much, for too long. 

She is old and weary, not always willing to go on. I don't know for certain, she will never tell me that, but I can feel a sense of kinship. 

Maybe I'm just projecting, she's still here, still grins and smirks, mocks Cassian at family dinners. 

(But then again, so do I.) 

* * *

Rhysand knows resilience, he knows being in darkness and staying there as long as it takes. He knows how to adapt, how to survive. How to give up parts of him to keep others intact. He walks a very fine line that sometimes blurs, but he always comes back from the obscure paths it leads to. 

On bad days he says, _you can take as long as you need to, even if it's more than you want. As long as you remember that it's not forever, and that you can call out for help if you get stuck._

He's right. 

_It feels comfortable in here_ , I reply on the verge of tears. This is what Cassian is afraid of, I recall. 

_The demons in your head are familiar, but it doesn't mean they're your friends._

I know that. 

My demons grin with betraying mouths and hold me with hands ending in skin-shredding claws. 

(And yet I hold onto them as fiercely as they cling to me.)

* * *

I know endurance, I know to bear the weight on my tired soul.

I know how to keep moving, and how to go on, and how to fight the bleak days, know how to hate this world and make it worth something, I know how to step back and know how to linger when I need to. 

I know the tricks of my mind, know that it can be my worst enemy as easily as it can become my best ally. I know how to battle and how to make peace within myself. 

I know the darkness as the palm of my hand, but I decide to rest under the sun even when I feel like it does not warm me. I know being lost, but I know how to read the stars until I find my way back. I know that I'm not complete, but I learn to fill the empty spaces. 

I know stubbornness. 

(Because as much as they try to bring me down, I'm still standing.) 


End file.
